[HN Gopher] Jolla phone - a full-stack European alternative
___________________________________________________________________
Jolla phone - a full-stack European alternative
Author : spinningslate
Score : 426 points
Date : 2026-03-02 10:21 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (commerce.jolla.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (commerce.jolla.com)
| spinningslate wrote:
| Jolla has announced a new phone using its Sailfish OS so
| providing a full-stack European alternative to the Android/Apple
| duopoly.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Yeah but the core issue is that all apps for digital services
| for both private and government, at least in my EU country, are
| only shipped for the iOS/Android duopoly.
|
| So having yet another 100th FOSS linux phone that won't run
| those apps is pointless until apps for these phones are shipped
| with feature parity, and they probably won't get shipped until
| these phones reach some critical mass adoption, and they won't
| get critical mass adoption because they don't run the popular
| apps.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Jolla phones can run Android apps.
| maratc wrote:
| Your point seems to be " _Some_ Jolla phones can run _some_
| Android apps, " while GP's issue is that "It's not true
| that _all_ Jolla phones can run _all_ Android apps. "
| Risse wrote:
| Check out this thread on Sailfish OS forums regarding EU
| Banking apps. I was surprised on how many actually work.
|
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/banking-apps-on-sailfish-
| os/1...
| joe_mamba wrote:
| If this is similar to LineageOS, then it's always
| potentially only a matter of time until some banking and
| payment apps stop working due to failing security
| attestation pushed by a Google update.
|
| We need native apps that pass attestation out of the box
| for that phone/OS, not relying on hacks that may or may not
| work in the future.
|
| This is not good UX and it poisons the well if you push
| users to a new platform then they discover some apps don't
| work as you promised.
| femto wrote:
| Beats me why banks can't use a FIDO2 enabled web site.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Banks used to give us those RSA tokens in the past for
| securely logging in to the web UI, but then discovered
| they can cut down on cost since everyone has two brands
| of smartphones.
| zaggynl wrote:
| What does full-stack mean here? Phone is fully produced in
| Europe? Software and online storage fully provided by European
| company?
|
| edit: I want this phone, I have reserved a slot in the coming
| batch.
|
| Just posing as an average Joe here, someone who does not host
| their own storage, calendar, contacts, phone tracking, remote
| wipe, the "free" features Google and Apple are known for on their
| phones.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| The previous Jolla C2 phone was built by Reeder in Turkey -
| they don't seem to say anything about the new phone
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/jolla-c2-out-of-stock/27573/5
|
| Let us clarify here as it is very different indeed.
|
| The Jolla C2 Community Phone is done in collaboration with
| Reeder, who is the HW vendor. This means Reeder sources the
| components, plans the production and does the manufacturing
| in Turkey. Jolla provides the complete software stack
| (Sailfish OS) which is installed by Reeder in the
| manufacturing.
|
| In the new Jolla Phone everything is different. Jolla is the
| vendor, has designed the product itself, done the component
| sourcing and pays directly to the component vendors. We
| control the pipeline. Further, we have secured our position
| for the initial memory batch with advance purchase.
|
| Also, to be clear: Reeder has no involvement in the new Jolla
| Phone.
|
| Thank you for asking, very good points to clarify!
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Apparently "full-stack alternative" means "layered on top of
| Android" these days, as Jolla does with libhybris.
| ggus wrote:
| From what I understand it's the opposite, an android
| compatibility thing layered on top of a linux base.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's both; the one I mentioned is for system drivers, the
| one you're talking about is for running applications (which
| you can also do on a regular non-Halium GNU/Linux using
| e.g. Waydroid).
| mariusor wrote:
| I'm sure that if you tell Jolla about a relatively modern
| mobile SOC with mainline linux support, they'll look into
| it instead of relying on libhybris.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| They can rely on libhybris if they want, why should I
| care - I just object to calling that "a full-stack
| alternative", especially when alternatives do exist.
| mariusor wrote:
| Modern SOC alternatives for a phone that can be used as a
| daily driver? Please do tell...
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Modern full-stack alternatives exist. I've been daily
| driving a Librem 5 running a Debian derivative for years.
| mariusor wrote:
| That wasn't modern when they released it in 2020. Jolla
| chose a little more pragmatism for their hardware in the
| hope that they actually sell phones to other people than
| 100% open-source purists. I find it funny when dudes like
| you go all "well awkshwally" on them...
| u1hcw9nx wrote:
| Usually 'full stack' just means software. Here it means a true
| Linux phone (Sailfish OS) plus Android compatibility with
| sandboxing. The C2 model is made in Turkey from Asian parts.
| The new phone is manufactured in Asia, but the final assembly,
| QA, and software flashing are done in Finland.
|
| This isn't for people with a consumer mindset. It's for people
| who want a Linux computer in their pocket, more privacy, and
| still want to run some Android apps.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| But even the full software stack isn't European as it runs on
| a Mediatek platform (ie. all the cellular stack and platform
| software is from Mediatek, which is from Taiwan). It's the
| _apps software stack_ on top of the Linux kernel that is
| potentially "European".
|
| There are no longer any cellular chipset vendors based in
| Europe, afaik, so there's really no alternative. It's also
| hard to see how they will ever again be one.
| ljlolel wrote:
| WW3
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| There are phones that can run "true Linux" out there, and
| there even are ports of Sailfish OS for some of them, but
| Jolla phones were never part of those and rely on Android
| drivers instead.
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| Pinephone/pro
|
| What else use main line kernel without blob ?
| megous wrote:
| Nothing else, really.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| People also successfully use Librem 5 (which I happen to
| use), OnePlus 6, Pixel 3A and some others. There's not a
| lot to choose from, sure, but they do exist.
| Jhsto wrote:
| Seems that Jolla C2 can run "close-to" mainline kernel:
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/mainline-linux-kernel-for-
| the...
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's a great work by a community member, but it's not
| something Jolla is supporting and it still has a long way
| to go.
| baxtr wrote:
| When I first read the headline I thought all hardware
| components are European as well. Seems like it's referring to
| the software stack only.
| Markoff wrote:
| huge notch and huge bottom bezel with mediocre Mediatek Dimensity
| 7100, all this for 650EUR with specs worse than 200EUR phones,
| that's like 450EUR for software, a bit high surcharge...
| joe_mamba wrote:
| It's what you get when you have no phone manufacturing supply
| chains anymore because you shipped them all to China 20+ years
| ago then lost the OS wars to Apple and Google leaving you with
| no local phone industry. Then it's gonna cost you through the
| nose when you're making, what are now to your industry, niche
| low volume items.
|
| Remember when you could buy EU made Nokias, Siemens and
| Ericssons? Even the chargers were made in Finland back then.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I think of those two, the OS wars is the much more
| substantial EU/US difference. It's not like Apple is making
| much hardware in the US, yet they wade in pools of cash.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As ex-Nokia, I can tell quite a few stories about the
| rampdown in Germany, of factories and R&D sites, merge with
| Siemens and what not.
|
| For those that care, search the news for strikes or layoffs,
| around the time iOS/Android were taking off.
| dddw wrote:
| Another good reason to dislike M$
| joe_mamba wrote:
| What does MS have to do with this? The Nokia factory
| shuffling and strikes GP was mentioning happened before
| MS took over.
|
| And people love to blame MS but Nokia was a sinking ship
| already by that point. MS was just a new captain added to
| steer the Titanic but the same fate was inevitable, as
| its home grown MeeGo/Maemo platform arrived too late and
| to too little adoption to stand a chance against the
| already established iOS and Android platforms who were
| throwing infinity money on becoming the undisputed mobile
| duopoly platforms, selling 10x as many devices as Nokia
| was selling Maemo N900s. It was already over for Nokia by
| that point same as it was for Blackberry. Nokia's own
| engineers admitted this the moment they got to play with
| the first iPhone at their Espoo HQ.
|
| That's like blaming a drunk driver for hitting a guy that
| previously shot himself in the head.
|
| Nothing MS could have done would have changed that fate
| for the better. WHat did people expect MS to have done?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Sure, but still, the driver was _very_ intoxicated and
| ran over the guy, then put the car in reverse and ran
| over the guy _again_.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| What does the driver matter if the guy was already dead?
| pjmlp wrote:
| I bet a judge would disagree on the inocence of the
| driver in such scenario.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| You're missing the point to argue in bad faith. The point
| was the even if a drunk driver hadn't run over Nokia,
| they'd still be dead from the Android and iOS onslaught,
| doesn't matter who ran over their corpse after that. A
| judge won't make you a murderer for running over a
| corpse, just a drunk driver, this is such a weird hill to
| die on.
|
| BTW, we're still waiting on the Nokia insider details you
| were mentioning before.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I won't spill any beans, some stuff is easy to find
| online, the other I usually keep my NDAs.
|
| Nokia is still pretty much around, and owns where UNIX
| was born in case you missed that part of history.
|
| While we had issues, the burning memo platform was the
| killer for the third party developer ecosystem, just
| coming around the hill to move from classical Symbian
| into Qt/PIPS, in a UNIX culture, to be told to go
| Windows.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Hold on a second, let's backtrack. First you say you can
| "tell stories about the factory rampdowns", then when
| pressed to tell those stories you say you can't "because
| of NDAs" .... from 20 years ago on a business that's now
| defunct ... not sure how any of that would be enforceable
| today, leading me to believe you're either chasing clout
| for upvotes, or bs-ing. But OK, sure, let's ignore all
| that for now and move to the next point.
|
| Secondly, you keep bringing up Stephen Elop's "burning
| memo" several times in this thread as the root cause of
| Nokia's failure, but when i use my google-fu to go back
| to the world of 2011, I see that Symbian had fallen to
| 31% market share from 44% the previous year and
| Maemo/Meego had a <1% market share, so it's clear to
| anyone with two brain cells to rub together than Symbian
| was in freefall and irredeemable against iOS and Android,
| and loosing them money, and Maemo/Meego was far too late
| to the party with an insignificant market share to rise
| up against iOS and Android, also loosing them money. So
| given this obvious loose-money loose-money situation
| Nokia was in, why wasn't the "burning memo" to stop the
| bleed, the right choice at the time?
|
| People say this was the wrong solution, but nobody ever
| says what the right solution was. Maybe because they
| don't have a better solution, and burning it was the only
| right one. So you're probably looking at the
| unsalvageable past through rose tinted glasses.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I guess it is too hard to find stuff like,
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-01-17/german
| y-r...
|
| Followed by a couple of years later,
|
| https://balkaninsight.com/2011/09/30/nokia-leaves-
| romania-in...
|
| Or I might suggest reading stuff like
| https://yle.fi/a/3-6886400
|
| The rest, think whatever you feel like.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> I guess it is too hard to find stuff like, Followed by
| a couple of years later_
|
| Why are you sharing links to things I already said I
| knew? I was was asking if you can share things that
| aren't on google.
|
| All that shows how EU and Nokia moved manufacturing out
| of the EU out of greed and mismanagement. And now people
| ask why phones made in the EU cost crazy money.
|
| _> Or I might suggest reading stuff like
| https://yle.fi/a/3-6886400_
|
| Wow, the ex-CEO of Nokia said that "the thing that failed
| was a bad idea", wow hindsight 20/20, most genious CEO
| ever. Now if mister Megamind CEO here could tell us what
| would have been the alternative better things Nokia
| should have done instead, in order to NOT fail, that
| would actually be interesting.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I dislike the board that brought Elop in, and promised
| him a bonus if he managed to sell Nokia Mobiles business
| unit, and they were also the ones that decided to off-
| shore factories and R&D into Eastern Europe and India.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Unfortunately Nokia was doomed because it was too slow
| and bureaucratic and could not adapt to the iPhone...
| Contrast with Samsung that managed to quickly churn out
| iphone "clones" and to iterate quickly.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Sure, if you miss the whole Bada OS failure, and Tizen
| for that matter.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> As ex-Nokia, I can tell quite a few stories about the
| rampdown in Germany, of factories and R&D sites, merge with
| Siemens and what not._
|
| Well please go on, spill the tea, don't leave us hanging.
| This would be very interesting to hear.
|
| _> For those that care, search the news for strikes or
| layoffs, around the time iOS/Android were taking off._
|
| Well, according to my google-fu, the factory closures from
| Finland and germany were relocated to Hungary and Romania,
| so still EU, therefore the EU could have maintained a
| domestic phone manufacturing sector in its lowest cost
| countries as well, if they had kept those fabs and not
| close them down as well to move everything to china.
|
| Everything about this screams of corporate greed and
| mismanagement on Nokia's part, way before Microsoft entered
| the picture.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Can you really get 200EUR phones with that good cameras?
| Markoff wrote:
| what good cameras? all I see is "Sony" without mentioning
| chip, even cheap phones like Poco X7 Pro or similar have
| nowadays comparable cameras as what they claim
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/next-gen-jolla-phone-
| update-1...
|
| Cameras:
|
| The primary back camera will feature Sony IMX766 AF 50MP
| sensor module, known for its quality and performance within
| the price range
|
| The secondary back camera will be a 13MP ultrawide AF Sony
| IMX214
|
| Front camera is set to be a 32MP wide lens FF Sony IMX616
| mrweasel wrote:
| The notch is a bit silly, given that you have the bezel at the
| bottom, but I guess it could be ergonomics.
|
| I believe the phone is designed around feedback for
| customers/potential customers. Which tells me that other people
| have very different phone usage from my own. I would have asked
| for a much smaller phone and a EUR200 price tag. The processor
| and even a shitty camera doesn't really bother me. I just want
| a cheap phone that can run like five apps (sadly one is the
| type that won't work, i.e. payments), and not run Android or
| iOS.
| Markoff wrote:
| > I just want a cheap phone that can run like five apps
| (sadly one is the type that won't work, i.e. payments), and
| not run Android or iOS.
|
| https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io
|
| https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices#Community
|
| you can certainly buy some of the supported smaller devices
| (e.g. Pixel 3a) and change battery for new
|
| sadly basically nothing newer than 2020
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| Buy a Xperia XA2 on Ebay for 180EUR + 25EUR for SFOS license.
| storus wrote:
| There is a huge supply chain surplus of notch displays as
| nobody wants them so I guess they decided that "real open
| source" folks don't care about design and bought them for
| pennies.
| mariusor wrote:
| It's always surprising to see this type of comments on HN.
| Jolla is not Apple, they barely scrunged 10K orders for this
| phone, they can't afford the economy of scale that other
| mainstream vendors can.
| ranguna wrote:
| Will it have USB C with DisplayPort alt mode?
| fnoff wrote:
| I think they're working on it, but it isn't sure yet.
| ttkari wrote:
| No final word as of yet, but in their most recent forum update
| [1] less than 2 weeks ago they said this is "unlikely for now".
|
| [1] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/jolla-phone-update-lights-
| on-...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _a full-stack European alternative_
|
| It is absolutely not. More than misleading title.
|
| People are jumping on this "EU sovereignty" thing band-wagon and
| milking it for all it's worth.
| latexr wrote:
| > It is absolutely not. More than misleading title.
|
| Could you elaborate? Just disagreeing without explaining why
| doesn't contribute to the discussion.
| jaggs wrote:
| No, they just want to get away from Americans.
| oytis wrote:
| The most important question missing from the FAQ is whether bank
| apps, government ID apps, etc. will work with this phone.
| mpol wrote:
| There is a Wiki maintained by users. In short, it depends :)
|
| https://sailfishos.wiki/books/compatibility-list-of-android-...
| crote wrote:
| _Everything_ hinges on app support.
|
| Smartphone apps have unfortunately become a hard requirement
| for basic day-to-day activities. Most companies offer them only
| for iOS and Android.
|
| If your smartphone can't run the vast majority of apps, it is
| basically dead on arrival. Nobody is going to buy it when they
| need to carry _another_ phone anyways.
|
| The only way around this is either emulation (which Google is
| trying very hard to sabotage) or heavy-handed regulation
| forcing app developers to also support niche platforms. I don't
| think either option is likely to work.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >heavy-handed regulation forcing app developers to also
| support niche platforms.
|
| should work for banking and governmental applications,
| especially as those should already have the workflow in place
| to support niche platforms.
| sgerenser wrote:
| They don't need to specifically support "niche platforms,"
| which will never happen anyway. They just need to support the
| one, universal platform every device (be it phone, laptop or
| desktop) can always access, the web.
| pbmonster wrote:
| And they don't want to, because that experiment ran for
| around 20 years and resoundingly failed. Turns out it's
| really hard to stop the bottom quintile of users from
| entering all their credentials into just about any website
| that looks similar to what they are used to - and then
| their identity/money is just gone.
|
| Stopping those users without a trusted authority deciding
| which electron-wrapped websites are genuine is an unsolved
| problem, I think.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| If the app truly just plumbed a webview and cert
| verification - which has been doable for over a decade -
| it would be very portable and this wouldn't be a problem.
|
| The apps don't just do that though; they call into and
| use an awful lot of the system APIs for user tracking /
| semi-native experience / biometrics and probably a whole
| host of other things. Its the incompatibility in these
| that drags compatibility.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > The apps don't just do that though; they call into and
| use an awful lot of the system APIs for user tracking /
| semi-native experience / biometrics and probably a whole
| host of other things. Its the incompatibility in these
| that drags compatibility.
|
| Both can be true. Many (most?) online banking apps are
| just shitty wrapped javascript, that also uses an awful
| lot of system APIs.
|
| I'm using a couple of different banks, and not a single
| one has anything close to a native app. Because how nice
| would that be? Responsive interface (since it doesn't
| need to load every single view from the server), instant
| search over your transactions (since the DB can be cached
| locally), instant access to all the PDFs in your inbox...
| but no.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> Smartphone apps have unfortunately become a hard
| requirement for basic day-to-day activities._
|
| I've never owned a smartphone in my life and are not planning
| on getting one, and I'm going through life just fine.
| postdoc74 wrote:
| Maybe you don't live in any European country. 2FA with cell
| phone has become compulsory for most banking procedures in
| Spain, to the point that I can even no longer assist my
| parents without being present there with them. Even when
| there is a web app, this randomly forces the user to
| confirm identity via phone. Every day this extends to more
| and more official proceduress these days (e.g. loging to EU
| pages, regional government paperwork, access to hospital
| records and prescriptions...), and unfortunately it seems
| to me that the phone as official ID might be the future. In
| this scenario, projects like this one cannot be really
| useful without some standardization or layer that makes it
| acceptable by the government.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Although I haven't held one in my hands, apparently there's
| Flutter support for Harmony OS. There are quite a lot of
| mobile apps implemented in Flutter and Dart, and platform
| support for alternative phone OSs looks doable.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's not a huge hassle to keep another phone around for these
| things, if you really want to have a Jolla phone.
|
| Of course they cannot answer this in the FAQ, because they have
| no insight into how thousands of different banks and other
| third parties will make their decisions on which devices to
| allow.
| rekabis wrote:
| The need to support apps - when you are constantly internet-
| connected anyhow - is becoming less and less important. You can
| now pin many websites to your phone's "desktop" and have them
| run identically to native apps, and sometimes with even better
| start-up performance.
|
| So long as a service is being provided identically on a mobile
| website as it is in a native app, you can pin that website and
| get just the same experience without needing a native app.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Nokia N900 was really great, Jolla has some of the former team
| people.
|
| I only jumped into Android after my Symbian phone died, and by
| then Symbian Belle, with QT and PIPS (PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian
| OS), it was already shapping great.
|
| That Burning Memo was really a downer.
| Zigurd wrote:
| "Burning the boats," in the form of getting rid of Jolla (and
| whatever happened to Meego) is one of those management
| aphorisms that needs to die. As it turns out, having an
| alternative to Windows phone would've been a better decision.
| No guarantee of success, but less of an irrecoverable failure
| at least. Where is that Elop guy now?
| koiueo wrote:
| Enjoying his golden parachute
| asveikau wrote:
| I'll say one good thing in hindsight about Elop. He's not
| all over the Epstein files like another MS executive of the
| era.
|
| Edit: Wow, I tried to be discrete and not mention him by
| name but I notice every time I mention Steven Sinofsky was
| close to Epstein I get downvoted a lot here. Look at this
| one I found searching for "elop" for example: https://www.j
| ustice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA006576...
| Zigurd wrote:
| As long as they weren't under-age I could tolerate a
| couple of Russian prostitutes peeing on him in exchange
| for a commercially viable Nokia handset business.
| dm319 wrote:
| Loved my N900 also, it was peak phone for me.
|
| But more importantly, we need an alternative to two big tech
| companies who are cranking the enshittification dial right up
| while also remaining under a particular country's laws.
| asveikau wrote:
| I thought the n900 did some things better than the n9. The
| biggest problem was lack of portrait mode. I didn't understand
| at the time why they didn't "just" tweak the n900 ui instead of
| rewriting everything.
| stuaxo wrote:
| I bought the pre-order thing, but not sure what to expect - I
| guess to get an email at some point so I can buy it..
| raphman wrote:
| HN discussion from four months ago, including reports from people
| who have been using Jolla phones for some time (e.g., me):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785840
| miramba wrote:
| A question I ask rather here than on that old thread: Is it
| possible to attach a monitor, mouse and keyboard to a jolla
| phone with sailfish and run a linux desktop?
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| Not now, and probably not in the near future.
|
| Don't buy if this is your main goal.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| I have a NexPhone on order for this very reason. I can't wait
| to see how it will work out.
| miramba wrote:
| Thanks, this looks very interesting! For reference:
| https://nexphone.com/
| card_zero wrote:
| It looks like keyboard works, mouse works when some settings
| are set, monitor doesn't.
|
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/q-enable-external-keyboard-
| mo...
| dev0p wrote:
| I mean 600+ euros is kind of a steep price, doubt I'll ever
| consider buying one because of that alone.
|
| Also, as an italian, Jolla reminds me a lot of the word "Ciolla",
| which you can only guess what it's a slang for. That doesn't
| help.
| defraudbah wrote:
| true, spaniards are confused too
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Italians were also the reason Moana was renamed Vaiana in
| Europe :D
| latexr wrote:
| Maybe it played a part in Italy:
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/11/16/disney-
| renamed-...
|
| But it wouldn't justify other countries. Apparently it's a
| trademark thing:
|
| https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=04d0b34d-efdb.
| ..
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Low quantity electronics like this have that problem. 600EUR
| makes sense. The fact that you can buy a phone for much less
| than that, or a car for 15,000EUR is a testament to what is
| possible at scale... When I saw single thousands quantities
| mentioned on the linked page I went "oh no..."
| bluebarbet wrote:
| This project has been going for years. Good to see it lives on.
|
| IMO there's a paradox with these privacy-focused mobile
| solutions. Just as with the expensive flagship corporate devices,
| the massive price tags suggest an assumption that we are doing
| all our computing on mobile. That's now the case for most
| normies. But for anyone who _really_ cares about their privacy
| (not to mention sanity), there 's a better solution available:
| repatriate most of one's computing to a laptop. At which point
| all these mobile devices become unjustifiably expensive. Hence
| the paradox.
|
| _PS: downvoting a reasoned opinion, apart from being lazy and
| toxic in any community, does not constitute a rebuttal._
| jimnotgym wrote:
| 'Approve this transaction in your smartphone app'. That is the
| killer.
| latexr wrote:
| I hate the camera bump trend. I don't need a super fancy camera,
| just give me something half decent and flush with the device.
|
| The original iPhone SE was the last time I enjoyed a phone's
| design.
| c0balt wrote:
| You might like the Pixel 10a/9a, they have an almost flush
| back. For this thread, not european but instead GrapheneOS
| capable.
| crote wrote:
| It is enabled by smartphone reviewers excluding it from
| thickness measurements. I bet camera bumps would be a _lot_
| less prominent if they were clearly represented.
| dewey wrote:
| That's fair, but in my experience for many people the camera
| and/or battery are the main reasons to upgrade to a new phone
| (Also the reason why the presentations focus on the camera for
| a big chunk of time usually I'd guess) so if they want to
| compete with that it makes sense to have a decent camera.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Same. I rarely use the camera. I almost never take photos and
| when I do it's like a serial number or something that I just
| don't want to write down.
|
| I do sometimes use the video for remote meetings but I don't
| care about picture quality for those.
| sailorganymede wrote:
| I noticed that the orders hasn't bumped up that much since this
| was shared last time. Not really sure I see the growth here is
| showing a lot of demand for a European smartphone - although I
| could totally be wrong given the geopolitical situation.
| jagermo wrote:
| The preorder did hit 10k, this is the normal order screen
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| If they were smart they would show those number here. It's
| like walking past an empty restaurant.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Other comments have links to more details, but in short: do not
| support this company.
|
| It was to be expected that a lot of corps will want to milk the
| term "EU sovereignty" and good willed naive people who don't look
| inside the packaging.
| mpol wrote:
| You're probably responding because of the Jolla tablet :)
|
| To be fair, the Jolla tablet was in 2015, more than 10 years
| ago. Most probably, many of the people working at Jolla are not
| the same as then. Also, if you read carefully all the
| announcements and communication from Jolla, you can easily see
| they have learned from that crowdfunding affair. This is not
| the same offer, not in a long mile.
| poisonborz wrote:
| That and the russian ties, the partially closed source OS,
| the locked bootloader, the $50 device reset fee, the cheap
| underpowered chinese chipset. The company was sold more than
| once between investment firms. Yet it presents itself like a
| happy independent open source collective.
| ttkari wrote:
| The firm with partly russian ownership went bankrupt a
| couple of years ago. The russian fork of the software lives
| on as AuroraOS in their local market but the current Jolla
| has no ties to russia.
| isodev wrote:
| > current Jolla has no ties to russia
|
| That we know of. We live in interesting times. I wish
| they were more forward with how they've made it so
| they're protected against such interference.
| goodpoint wrote:
| The OS is proprietary.
| mahrain wrote:
| Large parts of the OS are open source though. Not just the
| Linux kernel and userland, but also some specific things:
|
| Sailfish: https://github.com/sailfishos Android layer:
| https://github.com/libhybris/libhybris
| mariusor wrote:
| ... and yet it's a tonne more developer friendly than Android
| is becoming.
| fractallyte wrote:
| Yes, it's how they make money as a company and pay their
| developers. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the choice of Sailfish
| OS instead of iOS or Android.
|
| Proprietary is not necessarily bad.
| haritha-j wrote:
| This looks really cool. Orange, black and white being inspired by
| scandinavian design felt like a bit of a reach though.
| grigio wrote:
| if it doesn't run GNOME Mobile or KDE it isn't an alternative
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| How so ? It's not like this is an Android Skin.
|
| It's running a custom Wayland compositor and UI.
|
| Still use all the Linux stack you expect (GCC, Wayland,
| SystemD, Pulseaudio, RPMs, Dbus ...)
| this-is-why wrote:
| This is the third phone on the HN main page. I'm happy to see
| this flurry of work at real competition in the market, but I hope
| the companies can survive and respond to CSVEs.
| _imnothere wrote:
| I heard and read negative things about them, do they actually
| ship?
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/update-on-jolla-c2-q4-25-prod...
|
| Yes they do ship phones !
|
| Everyone is stuck on the 2015 tablet failure.
| jaggs wrote:
| This looks interesting. https://e.foundation/e-os/
| 10729287 wrote:
| That definitely seems to be the better alternative amongst all
| others. While I appreciate all the energy put into graphene or
| lineage it appears to me like way too much energy for Half baked
| solutions. Depending on google good will in the future too. I can
| understand them as hack, not that much as industrial proposals.
| codethief wrote:
| What's the sandboxing & app permissions story like on Sailfish
| OS? Is it just ordinary Linux, i.e. apps can basically do
| anything?
| maheart wrote:
| They use a custom-made Firejail-based solution called SailJail:
| https://github.com/sailfishos/sailjail
| trilogic wrote:
| Well done, congratulations. My next phone will certainly be
| European to the root. Will be nice to come preinstalled with some
| free European (apps, socials and video hosting, like Vivaldi
| browser, HugstonOne local AI, Protonmail, Libreoffice, w-social,
| vimeo, mastodon, lemmy etc.
| throw567643u8 wrote:
| What's the difference between this and the Fairphone?
| mariusor wrote:
| Fairphone produces strictly hardware.
|
| Jolla produces software, SailfishOS. The hardware for this
| phone is sourced from third party vendors and then assembled
| and sold by Jolla.
| thih9 wrote:
| > User configurable physical Privacy Switch - turn off your
| microphone, bluetooth, Android apps, or whatever you wish
|
| The "whatever you wish" seems to indicate that this is a regular
| switch that can be configured to turn off certain functionality.
| Is that true?
|
| I was hoping for a solution that physically disconnects the
| microphone/cameras/etc, or at least acts at some lower level than
| the OS. But if it's flexible and configurable then it sadly
| doesn't look as secure.
| johanvts wrote:
| It could do both, but it does say "or whatever", not "and".
| craftkiller wrote:
| How would you have a user-configurable switch that physically
| disconnects things? The mechanism for that sounds complex.
| I'm not a hardware person, but I imagine you'd need to route
| the traces for each possible component to the switch and then
| have like a dip switch panel to control which behaviors are
| controlled by the switch. Either that or a software-
| controlled equivalent to a dip switch panel that can only be
| configured in the bootloader, otherwise the software-
| controlled physical disconnect would be no safer than a
| software disconnect.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| As soon as it is sufficiently complex, it becomes a "trust
| me bro" switch.
| johanvts wrote:
| Im not a hardware person either, but ex the button
| physically turns off the canera, and software polls for
| camera power and can respond
| craftkiller wrote:
| Ah I think I understand what you're suggesting now. This
| hypothetical switch is both a physical and software
| disconnect. Some features like the camera would be
| physically disconnected by the switch and therefore would
| not be user-configurable but then some other features
| (for example, GPS) could additionally be software
| disconnected at the same time.
|
| That seems like a neat idea, but IMO I wouldn't trust the
| software-controlled half of it, so I'd end up only using
| the non-configurable physical portion of it.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| That makes sense but it's also just a guess. The quote
| above would be equally applicable to an entirely software
| option that is toggled with a physical switch rather than
| an option in a menu.
| torginus wrote:
| Since these things are almost certainly digital devices,
| just having a switch that cuts power to them could work.
| podgietaru wrote:
| I invested in this. I am quite sick of the attitudes of some of
| the big american phone players.
|
| This is coming from someone who has for the longest time been
| invested in Apple and the Apple Ecosystem. I adored the ease of
| integration of everything. The amazing synergy between their
| designers, and their engineers. I never really minded that things
| came later to the Apple Ecosystem. It just worked. And it was
| great.
|
| But the golden statue, the absolute pathetic DMA attitude from
| Apple. It started to get to me. And I am trying to now get out of
| that Apple Ecosystem.
|
| I don't think it'll be smooth. I think the process will be
| painful as I try to work around some of the limitations. No NFC
| payments will be my biggest painpoint as an ADHD addled man who
| forgets his wallet at least 3x a week. But it's worth trying. And
| it's worth supporting alternatives.
| DHolzer wrote:
| another adhd guy here. I haven't tried it, so i can't vouch for
| it to any degree of certainty, but maybe it's an option to have
| your main payment card in a sleeve inside your phone case? Even
| if it works, it's only a drop in the bucket, but maybe that's
| enough if you consider the lack of NFC payment a major issue.
| thank you for pushing for an alternative to android and apple
| podgietaru wrote:
| That's actually the plan going forward - right now I actually
| have a MagSafe wallet - and that does help a little bit.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| Tons of non-Apple phones support NFC payments, unless you're
| specifically referring to Jolla.
| podgietaru wrote:
| Sure, but they're android and I don't necessarily consider
| google better
| akrakesh wrote:
| Reduce it to the size of iPhone 5 and make the main camera flush
| with the surface, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
| mariusor wrote:
| The size has been decided based on a poll within the community.
| I also wish it was smaller, but the majority has decided...
| syntaxing wrote:
| Anyone use the Jolla C2? Seems pretty interesting (not fully
| European though)
| miohtama wrote:
| They have 10,000 preorders and will be in Mobile World Congress
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anttisaarnio_just-incredible-...
| isodev wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned, that's the only phone related
| announcement that matters this week. That and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| Great initiative but too big. Give me a 3.5" phone, under 100g
| with 2 weeks battery life, and we're in business!
|
| Oh the joy, of being able to back it up with restic, integrate my
| email, text and script based workflows, and have total control of
| the ports and software that runs on the device. That would be
| amazing!
| gr wrote:
| I want to believe! I remember the Palm Pre and webOS, maybe
| _this_ is the next big thing.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| News release:
|
| _The world premiere of the European Phone_
|
| https://jolla.com/content/uploads/2026/03/Jolla_Phone_PressR...
| dtj1123 wrote:
| I don't understand how the physical privacy switch can also be
| user configurable. Wouldn't configurability mean it's a software
| privacy switch?
| SirMaster wrote:
| What does it mean it's "governed by European privacy". Isn't
| Europe who wants to prevent privacy with things like Chat
| Control?
| s_dev wrote:
| EU has GDPR. US has the Cloud Act.
|
| Chat Control is a proposal. The other two above are established
| regulations on either side of the Atlantic.
| askonomm wrote:
| Given that it has been struck down multiple times now, it's the
| minority of European Union members. Making a blanket statement
| of "Europe" (which btw is not the same as EU) is just
| insulting.
| ruszki wrote:
| Chat Control was nowhere near to become law. Last Fall, they
| would have voted about whether they really talk about it, but
| even that failed. Even if it would have been successful,
| nothing would have guaranteed that it becomes a law, or that it
| wouldn't have been watered down completely. And the whole topic
| was kept alive somehow when it was well known even in September
| that the proposal was dead, because Germany doesn't support it,
| and they didn't have the necessary number of votes. Yet, there
| were articles even in November which stated that Germany
| decided only at that time that they don't support it, which was
| obviously not true. It seemed to me like an artificial bubble
| of outrage. It was a bad proposal, so the outrage was needed
| until September. It's just strange that people still pretend
| that it's not dead half year after it became impossible to even
| consider it in the parliament.
| carlesfe wrote:
| And it was Europe who, every time, fought back and won.
|
| It works both ways.
| sombragris wrote:
| No headphone jack?
| joshuakoehler wrote:
| Hmm, die deutsche Version der Seite ist nicht anderes -
| vielleicht ein Bug?
| dm319 wrote:
| We need this, an alternative to Apple and Google.
|
| I guess this is a descendent of my 16 year old Nokia N900, and
| probably the best phone I had. It ran the Maemo operating system,
| and its UI was a forerunner to a lot of what is current. It also
| had a built in, full, terminal.
| wackget wrote:
| I'm deeply saddened that they didn't add a 3.5mm audio/headphone
| jack.
|
| There was a community poll and I believe a headphone jack was the
| second-most requested feature after a MicroSD slot.
|
| I appreciate they have to draw a line under the feature set
| somewhere, however the cost of an audio jack is literal pennies
| and I'm quite sure the PCB designers could have squeezed it in
| somewhere.
|
| As someone who has no interest in wireless accessories it makes
| me unwilling to buy the phone.
| robcohen wrote:
| Seems like a very poor choice to build in a headphone jack. Why
| not just use usb c to headphone adapter?
| bjord wrote:
| why does it seem like a very poor choice to you, exactly?
|
| as for using an adapter, it's one extra thing to carry and
| also difficult to charge with simultaneously
| wao0uuno wrote:
| What's wrong with 3.5mm headphone jack?
| rekabis wrote:
| >they didn't add a 3.5mm audio/headphone jack.
|
| This works wonderfully in quiet environments. But the moment
| you have any significant background noise, and need noise-
| cancelling headphones, this ends up being useless because no
| headsets do noise cancelling over a headphone jack - only
| internal batteries or USB connectivity.
|
| Even with those rare wired- _optional_ headsets that accept
| headphone cords, the noise cancelling functionality gets shut
| off the moment you plug the headphone jack in.
| user2722 wrote:
| Some people said it's using libhybris. I thought this one was
| vanilla Linux. Any pointers either way?
| ilu2026 wrote:
| I would strongly advise do not spend any money on Jolla devices.
| Check their history of Tablet and other preorder products?
| t0bia_s wrote:
| 74mm width is too big to hold it comfortable in one hand or put
| in pocket. I find mobile devices above 71mm width unpractical for
| daily use.
| MerrimanInd wrote:
| > 8GB RAM, you can upgrade your RAM to 12GB with 50EUR
|
| Possibly the best per storage RAM price on the market right now!
| _Tomas wrote:
| I've been using Jolla/Sailfish since the first launch, totally
| love it.
|
| Apropos of the fact that nobody ever shows the actual OS, I did
| do a video showing the actual OS, if anyone wants to see it being
| used.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pMfezSulhw
|
| To me this is way ahead of iOS/Android, the native browser sucks,
| and it requires some massaging to get everything running
| smoothly, but the UX is second to none. That fact well supported
| by how many features have been copied by Apple/Google over the
| years.
| vincenzothgreat wrote:
| I appreciate the video, thank you!!
| rekabis wrote:
| >99 EUR down payment -- deducted from final price, fully
| refundable
|
| Uhhhh... so why _isn't_ that final price stated, even
| provisionally?
|
| I mean, if it's going to be a 300EUR phone, imma gonna bite. But
| if it's going to be a 500+EUR phone, I am going to want to know
| ahead of time. I don't like surprises where cost is concerned.
| Leaves _a very bad taste_ in the mouth.
| ItsBob wrote:
| Just an FYI... I don't know what their service is like but they
| won't respond to my emails asking for a refund so, tomorrow I
| have to contact my CC provider now. Not happy :-(
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